The Doctor in the Hospital
by Benjamin Franklin Gates
Summary: When Hodgins inexplicably stops breathing at the crime scene, he is taken to PPTH to be examined by the world renowned Dr. Gregory House.


"Based on the rate of decomp, as well as the shallow grave, I'd estimate time of death at around 3-6 days, once Hodgins is able to scrub for particulates, he should be able to narrow that down a little further." Brennan said. She was crouching above a set of horribly mangled remains.

"And why do they look that way?" Booth asked. He was referring to the body's haphazard arrangement.

"It appears that the body was disassembled." Brennan said, however she didn't have any level of confidence in her words, something that Booth had never heard.

"Disassembled?" Booth asked.

"Yes, this appears to have been performed with medical precision." Brennan explained, "if you look closely at the base of the skull, near the first vertebra, there is no damage to the bone, these bones were most likely separated before amputation occurred."

"Then why put the body in one place?"

"Clearly by dismantling the body, the killer planned to obfuscate the crime, hoping that a disembodied corpse would decompose quicker, judging by the excellent work at removing the body from the torso, I could almost guarantee there will be very little if any damage to the actual bones."

"Great, just the kind of killer I like, an egg-head."

"It would be much more difficult to catch an intelligent killer." Brennan said.

"I know, Bones, it's called sarcasm."

"Oh! Sarcasm, I thoroughly enjoy when comedians use sarcasm in their acts, as a means of audience involvement."

"Yeah... You want everything taken back to the lab?"

"Yes, including soil samples."

Hodgins quickly approached. "You guys are going to love this! I found intestines."

"Can't you see my excitement?" Booth asked.

"That's not the best part," Hodgins continued, "There appears to be a bullet hole, from a large caliber weapon, if we can reconstruct the victim's torso, Angela can calculate trajectory. We may have found cause of death."

"Okay!" Booth shouted to the nearby FBI Forensics team, "I want the body, as well as soil and water samples taken back to the Jeffersonian; I also need three agents to follow Hodgins and collect the same things where the intestines were located!"

Hodgins turned to walk away but then quickly came to a stop.

"Dr. Hodgins?" Brennan asked as she slowly stood to her feet.

Hodgins remained where he was silently. He slowly lifted his right arm to his neck.

"Hodgins!" Booth exclaimed.

Hodgins began coughing and gasping for air.

"Booth, I think he's choking."

Booth ran over to Hodgins and looked at his face; it looked blue, and by this point Hodgins had put both hands up to his neck. Hodgins slowly shook his head.

"Bones, he's not choking." Booth said as he quickly pulled out his cell phone and dialed. "Yeah, this is Booth; I need an ambulance down here right now!" He paused, "Dr. Hodgins can't breathe."

* * *

"29 year old entomologist suddenly goes into anaphylactic shock and nearly dies." Foreman said to House as he limped into his office.

"I don't know… he's allergic to something." House responded sarcastically.

"When he got here we ran a scratch test and it was negative."

"Because there are no allergens in the world that wouldn't show up on a scratch test" House said, again with a certain level of sarcasm, although Foreman could sense a small piqué in interest.

"The first responders had to trache him at the scene, by the time he got here; we had to redo the trache, because his neck had swollen too much for the catheter to fit down his throat." Foreman said.

"The EMP screwed up the trache."

"They picked him up in D.C., if the EMP had screwed up, and the doctors at Georgetown missed it, he'd have died before he made it here."

House snatched the file out of Foreman's hand. "Where was he when he went it happened?"

"They were in the woods, at a crime scene." Foreman said. "He works with the FBI that's why they brought him here. It doesn't matter if the case is routine, or even boring, you're doing it." Foreman turned around and walked out of House's office.

House walked into the outer office and found Chase and Taub at the table eating doughnuts and catching a few moments nap before their work day officially started.

"Good morning, Angels." House said as he tossed the file onto the table.

"What's this?" Chase asked.

"It's our new case. FBI entomologist inexplicably goes into anaphylactic shock, he wasn't allergic to anything at the scene, and even after he was put into a clean room, here, his symptoms continued to develop." House said.

"So it's an allergy, but it can't be an allergy?" Taub asked.

"You gotcha." House said. "Taub, go get a history, Chase, check out the crime scene."

"The file says he lives in D.C." Chase said.

"I'm not worried about his house; he was at an active crime scene investigating a murder when his symptoms started."

"It's illegal for me to go to the crime scene."

"Duh." House said sarcastically, he thought for a moment that he had one 'uped' Chase until he realized that he knew more than Chase. "He's an entomologist, bugs, slime, dirt, he took samples, and they were on him when he was brought here."

Taub and Chase remained seated at the table.

"Go!"

Taub and Chase hurried out of the room. House approached the white board and scribbled 'Allergic reaction' and returned to his desk.


End file.
